Root Causes

It’s 7:30pm and I just watched a really surprisingly powerful Oprah show (I’m going to miss her).  It was with Rob Lowe and he was talking about his new book.  I heart Rob Lowe… so I took off my work clothes, grabbed something to eat and snuggled into my favorite chair to watch.

Switching gears for a second- over the last couple weeks, I’ve been reacquainting myself with the concept of intuitive eating which I’ve talked about before.  My two major downfalls with intuitive eating last time was that I judged myself and I never really put weight loss on the back burner.

This time, I’m learning from my past… no judgment and no obsessing about weight loss- the latter being harder than you can imagine.  If I had to give myself  ” an intuitive eating” grade over the last couple weeks, I’d give myself a solid B.  I am trying to be fully present in deciding what and when to eat; I’m trying to be fully present when I overeat and catalogue what overeating feels like;  I’m trying to recognize when I’m hungry and what that feels like and what it feels like to eat at different levels of hungry; I’m trying to be cognizant of the different gradations of overeating and what they all feel like (physically and emotionally); I’m trying to pinpoint why I don’t stop eating once I’m full and why sometimes I take just a couple extra bites or why sometimes I basically have another whole meal.  I’m in the exploration phase: right now it’s all about non-judgmental observation and documentation.

Most times, my documentation is just 5-10 minutes of quiet time with myself reflecting on all those things I just talked about and taking mental notes.  Tonight, I overate… consciously.  Another definition of conscious overeating? Bingeing… as I sit here and write this- my stomach is still uncomfortably full.  Tonight, while watching Oprah, I binged for the first time since I re-started this process.  And once I was done watching Oprah, I didn’t judge (ok, maybe a little judgment for a few seconds).  But I began reflecting on what had just transpired to observe and document.

As I sat here, reflecting… I knew there was something going on that would need more than mental note taking so I busted out some paper to journal it.  Four lines in, I thought: “Why exactly are you writing this long hand in a random notebook when you have a blog?”… and so here I am: the clearly delinquent blogger.

So what was I feeling and thinking about tonight before the binge?  I was feeling nervous and anxious because my car registration expired FIVE months ago. I finally renewed my registration last weekend but I’m still waiting for my new tags to come in the mail.  After five months of ridiculous luck, I finally got pulled over by a cop this evening on my way home from work.  Thankfully, he was a super nice cop and didn’t give me a ticket. But he did tell me that even though my tags are current in the system (he checked), failure to dislpay your tags comes with hefty consequences: they could impound my car and take me downtown AND give me a $150 ticket.  So even though my tags are current, I’m not displaying them (because they haven’t come yet).  After this near miss, I got home and checked my mail hoping that my new decals would have come (no dice).  And so I’m upset with myself for being so delinquent in renewing my registration and nervous about driving in to work tomorrow (which I very well may not do given the potential consequences).   I was also angry at someone from work who recently has made me feel excluded on things that I used to be included on.

I had unexpressed anger at a work colleague knowing full well I could never express that anger and was nervous and anxious about the idea of driving before my new tags get in and mad at myself for putting myself in this position where I may be stuck without a car for a few days.  Before writing this last (run-on) sentence, I thought the reason I binged was out of nervousness, anxiousness, and anger. I shivered at what I actually felt as I wrote those words, I felt  powerless.  Powerless to tell my co-worker how I really felt, powerless to get my new tags for my car any sooner than the DMV gets them to me, powerless to know if I could get away with driving a couple more days.

There is probably no feeling that rocks me to my core more than feeling powerless.   It took nearly 800 words, but I figured out that the root cause of my binge: feeling powerless… no judgment, for now just observing and documenting.

Thank God for Nightmares

This morning, the alarm went off at 5:10 so that I could go to the gym. I hit snooze a couple times and as I am about to hit snooze again, I realize… its now or never. Instead of another round of snooze and sleep, I decide to wake up and turn off my alarm. I remember the sense of pride I felt this morning in that moment although I was still half asleep: it was 5:30 and I was getting out of bed and going to the gym.  The next thing I remember?

Waking up from a nightmare (in which scary unidentified creatures were chasing me).  It was now 6:30 am.  No one likes nightmares, but thank God for this one, otherwise I may have slept the morning away and been ridiculously late for work!

So no gym, but upshot… got to work on time!

Accomplishments

Albeit small, I have had a few accomplishments over the last couple days. And if I’m going to call myself out on the non accomplishments, then got to blog about the good stuff too!

Guess who went to the gym twice in the last 3 days? Yep, me.:-) Saturday evening, my friend had to basically drag me there. But I went even if it wasn’t my idea.  And this morning, yep… this morning before work, I got to the gym right before 6am.

Let’s hope I’m turning a corner. 

My little sister told me once that I needed to find something that would serve as my stress relief.  It didn’t have to be major, it probably shouldn’t be my “workout” – just something to unwind each day. I knew she was right, but I never made time to find my something let alone do it. This weekend, I found it.

Each night, I’m going to come home and I’m going to dance. I’m going to bust a move in my living room. Whether for 10 minutes or longer, I’m going to put on great music and dance like nobody’s watching.  I made a playlist on Saturday and tested it out. OMG, I haven’t had that much fun in a  long time. 

So there it is and I feel pretty damn accomplished!

Distractions

I had a revelation in the shower this morning: I only have a finite amount of energy to expend into this world… and I’m possibly not using it appropriately.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I just can’t get to the gym and focus on my weight loss.  It was one thing when I was fighting depression, but I kind of figured that once the depression dissipated- I’d get back in the groove of things. It’s what I want, to lose weight.  But in a moment of honesty in the shower this morning… it dawned on me.

I’m distracted. Yes, things are better at work…but its far from perfect. And I spend most of my energy dwelling on my job: all the negatives and frustrations about my job; whether it was the right decision; and what if anything I can do to improve my situation as it relates to work.

This is what I am always thinking about, its what I am incessantly talking about… its what I expend all my energy and focus on.  And since I only have a finite amount of energy, I have no energy to focus on the betterment of myself.

So now the question is, what do I do about it? A post for another day.

Let’s Try this Again

Today was going to be the day, the day I finally got back to the gym. Today was supposed to be the day.

Clearly today wasn’t the day. Sigh, oh well. I guess tomorrow will be the day…